I dreamt of Getter Robo inescapably the last night I slept after my previous entries. There’s nothing wrong with Getter Robo (everything is wrong with it) but the thing that strikes me about the work is how it’s become so expansive through it’s various incarnations, sequels, alternative versions, adaptations. I have no idea how many different versions of Getter Robo there actually are but I’m reminded of a scene from one of them (I don’t want to spoil it) in which the characters essentially step outside of their own world and glimpse a space in which an expansive number of Getter Robos of all sizes and shapes are arrayed. To me this was striking, for the first time it made me think of the Getter Robo series as an actual mythos with possibilities limited only by one’s own imagination. This is terrifying.

I think it’s time I expand on something I wrote last month which I left vague because I felt like it. I even got a comment on that but I didn’t reply because that’s what I felt like too. In my mind taking responsibility for creating fiction begins with the commitment to bring closure to the work. In this age when creation has to answer to capitalism I know that there are a lot of creators out there who are somewhat forced into either not ending their works or extending their works past their initial ending. And invariably the quality of the work suffers. The Gundam series is a good example whereby eventually the main creative force, Yoshiyuki Tomino, openly expressed hatred for the work and even as production values rose the quality of the story in each incarnation got worse and worse since it was essentially the same plot rehashed over and over. Gundam Seed Destiny for instance (which of course Tomino had nothing to do with) was a dragged out cash run that could have as easily been a story told in a few OVA episodes ala Gundam Wing Endless Waltz to Gundam Wing. I was not unappreciative of Stargazer for instance.

But I digress. Which is the point. It doesn’t matter what the content of your work is, what’s important is that it’s finite and that when people are done with it they can put it down. I think that when I talk about fiction giving people an alternative to reality they think of fantasy fiction of which The Lord of the Rings is the first and last name known around the world. However I think that Tolkien was actually very responsible with his work precisely because it was fantasy. The story is clearly fiction and entirely separate from our world. The seemingly large number of people obsessed with it is just a story blown out of proportion by the media. Certainly there are a fair number of people who are caught up in the work but for every Frodo1987 you see online there are probably more than 1000 people who read the story and liked it and went on to lead perfectly normal lives.

Examples of the wrong way to go about things are Star Wars, Harry Potter, and in my mind the worst of them all is the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. I’m not going to touch Star Wars with a 500 meter pole (this one is a 505 so it’s too close for comfort) but the thing about Harry Potter is very easy to express.

The problem with Harry Potter is that rather than a diversion it’s an escape. You have a boy who is in a miserable place and then a Troll comes along and whisks him away to a world of magic in which he is instantly able to become a hero and there isn’t tragedy in proportion to the wonder or effort in proportion to ability. As opposed to people reading LOTR and finding wonder and inspiration in a story of the paradigms of fantastic races you have a generation sitting around waiting to be taken away so that they can all of a sudden become magical champions. I actually think that it’s worse that originally the work is intended for youths, if a person doesn’t set up a border of reality when they’re young… In any case the problem with Harry Potter is that there isn’t a lot wrong with being Harry Potter, and there’s nothing to say that anyone might not actually be a Harry Potter and they just don’t know it. I’ll admit to enjoying the stories but I’m an adult so I can do what I want and it’s OK.

Ah the problem is similar with Lovecraft’s work. In truth I’ve only read one short story of his which I believe was about a mummy because I knew that if I walked into his world I would never walk out. I think a lot of people are familiar with his name because it’s often used as an analogy (eg: a very Lovecraftian monster) by people who also haven’t read any of his work. However his work never has and never will be able to achieve mainstream popularity. Whereas the people who are obsessed with LOTR could just as easily get obsessed with anything else that’s not too hardcore (star wars, anime, video games, The Wheel of Time, studio pornography, marijuana) and in fact are often enough the types to shift from one thing to another, those hooked by Lovecraft could have only been hooked by his world and remain exclusive. I knew a German physicist who at first glance is typical in that sense but who behind the lab coat is entirely incapable of advancing as a human and by the age of 30 had never even had the desire for intimate human contact. I believe it’s his obsession with the Cthulhu mythos which is responsible for this kink among others. I had seen everything else about him but that present in others who are just fine in my judgment (of course in his own he’s fine and so I guess that’s his business) so I can only attribute it to that.

At least in Harry Potter there’s the minor boundary of those who can and can’t use magic even though it could theoretically still be in our world. But in Lovecraft’s work there are no boundaries there is only despair. Well perhaps someone who is a fan of Lovecraft will see this and have something to say. Whether or not that won’t simply prove my point…

Once again I will reiterate that one should not hold back from writing as they will. But consider the consequences carefully before you present the work to others. I honestly believe that Lovecraft was swallowed up by the karma of his work’s effects on the world and that’s why he met such an ignominious end. That’s kind of a bold statement but even more than people getting wrapped up in his work the problem is the works of others who were affected by him. I do wonder about what this physicist might get up to but I’m actually talking about other creators of fiction. For example Demonbane. How the hell that happened and the fact that there are plenty of other works like that without cthulhu elements doesn’t matter because it did happen and they are in it. Supposedly Stephen King was influenced by Lovecraft although I’m not especially familiar with him either. Having read the Dark Tower series for some reason I can say that I would consider him more irresponsible if he wasn’t so self-absorbed.

Well I’ve totally lost focus here but that’s totally OK. My personal kink for a book is The Count of Monte Christo which has been incarnated as a Korean fantasy PC game that was later ported to the Japanese Dreamcast which was then ported to the PS2 (I only remember that the japanese title is “nishikaze no rhapsody” which means “rhapsody of the western wind” but I think it was maybe titled “rhapsody of zephyr” with of course zephyr being a western wind so that would make sense…), turned into the anime Gankutsuou (which actually reminds me more of the aforementioned game but is sort of steam-punk space sci-fi), and of course adapted into all sorts of movies around the world, none of which are that good in my opinion (the game and anime werent either just so you know). Look at me mangle grammar!

For authors I’d say Haruki Murakami somehow. Maybe I’ve just lived a strange life but before I realized that his works are probably supposed to be almost entirely metaphorical (“Norwegian Wood” and “South of the Border, West of the Sun” with perhaps various short stories being the exceptions of works meant to be taken at face value) I didn’t feel like it would be surprising if any of the things contained therein happened to me. And in fact some of them already had before I’d even heard of him. Ironically I first read a book by him because I had him confused with Ryu Murakami (no relation, though the pronunciation is the same the kanji are different if I remember correctly, of course I didn’t see the kanji at the time or read any of their stuff in the original japanese) who did an art project that a friend of mine saw and whose literary work I am still ignorant of though it’s been referenced in a few other works I’m familiar with.

As I’ve mentioned dreaming of Getter Robo I will admit to being a mecha anime fan for some strange reason. Since I brought up Gundam, which I have seen almost all of the varied animated works of, I’ll say that I really thought Turn A was the best (ZZ Gundam for mainline UC). However my favorite work by Tomino is Overman King Gainer. I like a lot of the works by Gainax, I’d say that the 5th episode of Gunbuster is my favorite of any mecha series and that the 6th episode really surpassed my expectations. Right now they have a show out in japan called “Tengen Toppa Gurenn Lagann” or something like that which I would describe as an amalgamation of Ideon, Xabungle, Overman King Gainer, Gunbuster, and almost anything else you can think of. I’m really not sure that there’s a single original element in the show even though there are some which I’m not really familiar with (having a small robo combining with other robots to exponentially power them up might be an element of some series which I think is called “tobikage” and the whole beastment/hybrid human thing has been done to death otherwise). The story is wonked but the point of the work is the outrageous animation. Just like Full Metal Panic is a mecha series but that’s just a device for the darkness and mystery that underlies the series. I really liked Final Gaogaigar and Genesic Gaogaigar might be the coolest mecha around (Soldato J being my favorite character mentioned herein but even though King J-der is super powerful it’s not very cool) but the original tv series was weak, I enjoyed both Betterman and Godanner. I’d say that in general the older mecha series really had soul that got lost for the most part throughout the 90s (Giant Robo and Gaogaigar being a few of the bright spots) until the resurgence of retro mecha series which I believe was a result of the super robot taisen series.

Which is my game obsession. I’ve been playing video games for a long time and the SRT series (super robot wars officially) is not especially that good and in fact the last 2 Alpha games were tedious but the series is somehow compelling. The actual problem with the series is that they always have strange bugs, the ones in certain batches of Alpha Gaiden and Alpha DC (dreamcast alternative 3d version of the original alpha which for some reason took years longer to develop than the PS version), which of course included my personal original copies, were in fact crippling and why I never finished DC Alpha and had to play the space route in alpha gaiden twice hmph. I want to get the PS2 Original Generations which is likely to be the last SRT on PS2 but I never finished the GBA OG games (or for that matter D or A though I completed R and beat J) and it took so damn long to come out that I never preordered it. hmph. I was a little interested in getting the GC or MX srt games but I never did (no japanese gc and I didn’t like Impact).

Anyway my hands are almost crippled from years of abuse so the point when I can even hold a game controller anymore (typing is more important) is almost at an end. So I’ve been beating the hell out of Alpha 3 lately and have thought about completing Alpha 2 as well but I’m less determined about that one (after seeing the end in it’s entirety is there a point in revisiting the middle?) or interested. I probably should have done that after the 2nd time I beat Alpha 3 but instead I started playing it again (you get a new game plus sort of thing and I beat the extra hard mode and am now breezing through special mode and trying not to waste hours setting up platoons again…). As to that game, Selena is the most amusing character, Touma is bleh, I don’t know how to write or say Cobray but having his mecha designed by the guy from Atlus who does Shin Megami Tensei stuff…, and Kusuha’s True Dragon Tiger King is the coolest but fucking “bullet” (no matter how many times I see that it looks like “brit” to me) is the reason I didn’t play as her in Alpha 2. Eh hem. By the way, the Buff Clan from Ideon wins the prize for being the most god damned tedious and boring but easiest to hit enemies in the game. I’d say a problem with Alpha 3 is all the hanging on series that are left over that weren’t cut out, but at the same time it didn’t necessarilly make a lot of sense that V gundam and Braiger among other series were left out when Alpha 2 came along. Although my japanese comprehension is a lot better at this point than it was when I saw the ending to any of the other alpha games so perhaps there was some explanation for that (I think Braiger was just forgotten but maybe the Brain Powerds stopped working or something) which I’m not aware of. OH WELL! What I’m really not sure about is what happened to the Virtual On units at the end of Alpha 3 although it didn’t seem like they got sent home, maybe they joined GGG (three G) or something. Because of my nostalgia for the series I hyper powered Fei Yen in my special mode playthrough although of the three units her usability is probably the lowest.

hmph. What a ridiculous entry. I’ll go back to the breach now.